From Saturday 17 February to Saturday 17 March 2018 - via Torino 105/Q

Opening Saturday 17 February 2018, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

The Galleria Massimodeluca is pleased to present A nostra immagine e somiglianza (In our own image and likeness), a solo show by Filippo Berta curated by Angel Moya Garcia (from 17 February to 17 March 2018; opening Saturday 17 February 2018, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.). The show will be preceded by a performance of the same name created for the 6th Thessaloniki Biennale and now reproposed for this occasion in Mestre on Saturday 27 January at 7.30 p.m., in a space a short distance from the gallery in Via Torino 107/c (for information about how to take part: news@massimodeluca.it).

A nostra immagine e somiglianza is a tale about the simplicity of certain elementary gestures – determined, obstinate and reiterated ones – with which the artist traces an overview of the singularity that emerges in each individual with respect to his or her community of reference. In this context, the gallery rooms will be structured in an exhibition form following the various developments of the performance in order to trace out a sequence about the differences, multiplicity, and complexity hidden in each society.

The show welcomes the visitors with a video about the industrial assembling of crucifixes, a video that acts as a prequel to the recording of the performance undertaken in Mestre in the weeks preceding the opening of the show.

This recording develops as a collective action in which a group of people are concerned with fixing nails into a wall while standing on tiptoe, and in such a way as to reach the highest point allowed by their body; identical crucifixes are hung from the nails. The result is an impassable, irregular and subjective limit to any kind of hypothetical perfection that each human being might uselessly try to reach, one that leads to endless slavery.

The mechanical rhythm, insistent and monotonous, of the automatic assembly is countered by the discordant and heterogeneous rhythm of the performers. This action, with its wholly planned commercial and distributive objective, is repeated with an ancillary gesture with no other aim than that of highlighting diversities and contrasts. The greedy and regular noise of the machines, which has been purposely silenced by the artist, is answered by the discordant and asymmetrical confusion of the individual gestures.

Further along the exhibition itinerary, the action is then held up and is formalised at its height to allow us a final moment of respite from the performance by way of an area full of life-size photos in which numerous groups of silent subjects, their faces turned to the wall, invade the space. These are individuals without a name or concrete stories or references who, however, manage to distinguish themselves from each other by their own physical characteristics and, above all, by the personalisation of a gesture, their posture, and their attitude when undertaking their tasks. A kind of Panopticon in which, though, the viewers cannot manage to decipher the gazes, faces, and expressions of those being monitored.

And so this solo show at the Galleria Massimodeluca coherently follows the art of Filippo Berta, a show centred on interpersonal relationships, and on persevering with a search for perfection that is dismembered and shattered in the face of its failure and the impossibility of mankind to find a balance between his intuitive, emotive, and impetuous nature, and his defined and standardised role in our society of appearances.

Filippo Berta (1977). From 2012 to 2017 he exhibited at the MADRE museum in Naples, the MSU-Contemporary Art Museum in Zagreb (HR), the Museion Museo Arte Contemporanea in Bolzano (IT), the Jonkopings Lans Museum (SE), the Staedtischegalerie, Bremen (DE), the State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki (GR), the Pori museum (FIN), the Victoria Art Center, Bucarest (RO), the Center for Cultural Decontamination, CZKD, Belgrade (SR), the Matadero Contemporary Creative Centre, Madrid (SP), the Galleria 400, Chicago (USA), and the MAO-Museum of Architecture and Design, Slovenia. He has participated in the Thessaloniki Biennale (GR; 4th and 6th editions), the Curitiba Biennale (BR; 34th edition), the Prague Biennale (CZ; 5th edition), and at the Moscow-Young Art Biennale (RU; 3rd edition). He has been chosen for various artists’ residencies, among which those of the Fondazione Ratti, Como, and the Fondazione Spinola Banna, Poirino (near Turin). He has taken part in such festivals as the Sarajevo International Festival (2014; 30th edition), International Konst Film (2013, Sweden), Corpus 3 (2012, Naples), Romaeuropa Festival (2012, Rome), Tulca-After the Fall (2011, Galway, IR), and the European Performance Art Festival (2011, Warsaw, PL). in 2015 he won the Premio Fondazione MIA, Bergamo. In 2014 he won the Maretti prize, Havana (Cuba), and was a finalist for the Talent Prize, Rome. In 2008 he was one of the winners of the 4th edition of the Premio Internazionale della Performance, Galleria Civica, Trento.

Angel Moya Garcia (Cordova, Spain, 1980. He lives in Florence) is a contemporary art critic and curator. He graduated in art history from Cordova University, Spain. He is currently co-director for visual arts for the Dello Scompiglio cultural association in Lucca, and member of the IAC contemporary art institute in Spain. The basic aspect of his research is centred, in an almost maniacal way, on the concept of identity, the collectivisation of individuals, and on the deconstruction of the subject in contemporary philosophy. At the same time he deals with questions of transversality through an analysis of boundaries and identification, and the detailed study of the convergences and intersecting lines of the various contemporary undertakings. Among the various shows he has curated, mention should be made of the trilogy Tensioni strutturali at the Galleria Edoardo Secci, Florence; Sobre le sangre, a solo show by Teresa Margolles curated together with Eugenio Viola; I can reach you (from one to many), a group project curated together with Pietro Gaglianò and Daria Filardo; Emergenze acustiche, a solo show by Roberto Pugliese; and Spazio #06, a solo show by Gian Maria Tosatti at the Tenuta Dello Scompiglio.